Daily Excelsior... World

Indonesia’s Yudhoyono eyes tougher terror laws

SINGAPORE, Oct 20: Indonesia’s President-elect Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said he might have to introduce tougher laws to tackle terrorists who still pose a grave threat to his country.

Yudhoyono, who was due to be sworn in as President at 0300 gmt, said in an interview with Singapore’s Straits Times newspaper published today dealing with terrorism would be his top priority.

"We still face the grave threat of terrorist attacks," he told the newspaper. "I will take all necessary measures to make sure that Indonesia does not fall victim to another attack."

Yudhoyono was swept to power as the country’s first directly elected President on promises of faster job growth and action against Islamic militancy.

More than 200 people, many of them foreigners, have been killed in bomb attacks in Indonesia over the past two years, including blasts on the tourist island of Bali in October 2002 and an attack on the Australian embassy in Jakarta last month.

Yudhoyono said his Government would draw up comprehensive measures, including boosting the effectiveness of security agencies and reviewing laws, in the fight on militancy.

"The problem for us so far has been the difficulty in detaining suspected terrorists indefinitely. Tougher laws can help us deter acts of terrorism and it is something I will have to review," the former General said.

Indonesia enacted anti-terror laws soon after the Bali bombings. They allow for the death sentence and give police the power to use intelligence data to detain suspects for six months without trial.

Indonesia is the world’s most populous muslim country. The majority of people follow a moderate form of Islam.

Others hope that caution may be a thing of the past. "People who have worked with him before have said that he is consensual to a fault," said Sidney Jones, southeast Asia head of the international crisis group think-tank.

"Balanced against that is the fact that he played his cards perfectly in running for President, and he did have to take key decisions and he did have to act on those."

Critics see Yudhoyono’s caution and peacemaking skills as signs of indecisiveness.

Supporters say he balances strong and humane qualities. He rose through the ranks under autocratic President Suharto, ousted in 1998, but has no blood on his hands and is known more for his large library than prowess in combat.

One fellow officer once labelled him an "air-conditioner General", although he led Indonesia’s peacekeeping contingent in Bosnia during the mid-1990s.

"Just because he had a few stars once upon a time doesn’t make him the pick of the military," said Conboy. "He is not really a General in the traditional Indonesian sense."

Yet the army runs in Yudhoyono’s blood and he has pledged to give it a bigger role in fighting terror.

The son of a low-ranking soldier, Yudhoyono is married to Kristiani Herrawati, daughter of Sarwo Edhie Wibowo, once commander of Indonesia’s feared special forces, Kopassus.

The couple have two sons. The elder, Agus, is an Army Lieutenant. The other, Baskoro, is a student in Australia.

Yudhoyono, who spent years training at US Army bases, has won applause from the west for his pledges to step up the fight against Al-Qaeda-linked militants who staged three major bombings during Megawati’s rule.

He was Megawati’s former Chief Security Minister who rose to prominence as her Government’s public face in the fight against a violent Islamic fringe after the 2002 Bali nightclub blasts.

But Yudhoyono’s election victory in the world’s most populous Muslim nation owes more to the concern of voters about jobs, prices and corrupt officials.

For that reason, analysts say some in foreign capitals may be disappointed.

"His priorities have got to be domestic ones and addressing terrorism doesn’t ring many bells with a domestic audience," said Jones. (AGENCIES)

Terrorists doomed to certain failure: India

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 20: Emphasising the need for coordinated action to combat the "global threat" of terrorism, India has asserted that terrorists are doomed to a certain failure.

"The extreme reactionary" vision of terrorists can only strengthen reaction while their "extreme anti-humanism and devotion to death and destruction dooms them to a certain failure," India’s United Nations Ambassador Nirupam Sen said.

Intervening in the Security Council debate on terrorism yesterday, Sen pointed out that terrorism is not a new phenomenon to India. "Over 60,000 Indians have fallen victim to the ravages of terrorism and those who perpetuate, protect, sponsor or facilitate it," he said without naming any country.

Despite that there was not a single terrorist from India among "foreign fighters" abroad, he said, giving credit to the integration of all faiths that have contributed to the rich fabric, the Indian fabric.

He also stressed on the need for coordinated action combat terrorism, saying it knows no border or boundary, observes no code of conduct or constraints or religious ideology. "Nor is it restrained by humanity or civility but dictates its terms through death and destruction, fear and confusion."

The new Indian Government, he said, is committed to the repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act and, therefore, to fighting terrorism without, in Benjamin Franklin’s words, "diminishing the legal personality of the citizen." (PTI)

US to poison prairie dogs in south Dakota

DENVER, Oct 20: Wildlife workers have begun a program to poison thousands of prairie dogs in the grasslands of south Dakota to stop them from moving onto private ranch land parched by drought, a federal official said.

But in an agreement to settle a lawsuit filed by eight conservation organizations last month, the US forest service will spread poison on fewer acres than originally planned and conduct an environmental study to figure out a long-term solution, according to Don Bright, forest supervisor for the buffalo gap national grassland in southwestern south Dakota.

"We need to be good neighbors and we do not want a landowner to go out of business," Bright said yesterday, referring to ranchers who said prairie dogs were eating the little grass left in the fifth year of drought.

Parts of the area have been hard hit by drought and had less than two inches (5 cm) of rain in the past 15 months.

The groups had sued in federal court in Denver, saying the prairie dogs should not be shot on federal land especially because their habitat is home to the endangered black-footed ferret whose diet consists mainly of prairie dogs.

Bright also said planned rifle hunting of prairie dogs — which is basically target shooting — will be banned this year in an area where there are about 200 ferrets.

Jonathan Proctor, northern plains program director for predator conservation alliance, called the settlement a mixed bag.

"We hate that wildlife will be killed and Ferret habitat destroyed on our public land, but the settlement will save more wildlife and habitat in the long run," he said. (AGENCIES)

Nearly 1.7 million US vets lack insurance: Study

WASHINGTON, Oct 20: Nearly 1.7 million US veterans had no health care coverage in 2003 — no access to private insurance, to medicare or medicaid or to the veterans affairs health program, health care advocates said.

Many had seen combat in Vietnam or the Gulf wars and most were employed, the physicians for a national health program and public citizen said yesterday in a joint report.

"The number of uninsured veterans has increased by 235,159 since 2000, when 9.9 percent of non-elderly veterans were uninsured, a figure which rose to 11.9 percent in 2003," the groups said.

They found that more than one in three veterans under the age of 25 lacked health coverage, and one in 10 of those aged 45 to 65.

"Like other uninsured Americans, most uninsured vets are working people. And uninsured veterans are denied the care they need —turned away because they can’t pay," Dr Steffie Woolhandler of Harvard Medical School, who helped found the PNHP, told a news conference.

Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony Principil said the report used veterans to advance a political agenda — taxpayer-funded universal health care.

"Americans can be proud of the health care provided to the men and women who have served this nation in uniform," Principil said in a statement. "Record numbers of veterans are choosing and getting va health care because of the quality and timeliness of that care."

The report did not dispute the quality of care and woolhandler praised the VA for its overall efficiency.

The VA also disputed the 1.7 million figure and was checking its own records.

The report was especially critical of a January 2003 decision by the Government to suspend eligibility for so-called category 8 veterans, who include "middle-income" ex-servicemen and women making on average 25,000 a year or more.

"The armed services are aggressive in encouraging people to join the military to serve their country and to ‘be all you can be’," said Dr Sidney Wolfe, Director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group.

"But after leaving the service, almost 1.7 million veterans do not have the right to health care, in a way, being discarded by the Government after serving their country. Without access to health care, no one can be all that they can be."

"These numbers should come as no surprise to the Government because we used Government data," Woolhandler said.

The groups relied on the march 2004 current population survey annual social and economic supplement, which includes information from 200,000 people, and the 2002 national health interview survey of 93,000 people.

Those surveys have also been used as a basis for the widely quoted figure that 45 million americans went without health insurance in 2003. People without health insurance are unlikely to get anything but emergency health care and often not even that.

Based on the data, 1.694 million American veterans had no insurance coverage last year, the researchers said.

That would include 680,000 Vietnam-era veterans and 900,000 from other times — mostly the 1991 Gulf war, because Korea and World War two veterans were covered by medicare.

"An additional 3.9 million members of veterans’ households were also uninsured and ineligible for VHA (Veterans Health Administration) care," the groups said in a statement.

Woolhandler said veterans who had any kind of coverage at all were filtered out.

"First, both surveys we analyzed asked respondents if they had ‘veterans or military health care’ and considered anyone answering ‘yes’ as insured," reads the report, published on the internet at http://www.Pnhp.Org/veterans/veteranrep.Doc. (AGENCIES)

Milan ice bar gives Vodka on the rocks new meaning

MILAN, Oct 20: It’s Vodka on the rocks at its most literal.

Forget clinking ice into your glass. The newest arrival on Milan’s vibrant bar scene serves up the whole evening on ice — ice walls, ice tables, ice sofas, an ice bar, even ice glasses.

"It’s just like being in Lapland. Apart from the rain and taxis outside, that is," said Daniele Gattino, a guest at the opening party.

A franchise of Sweden’s ice hotel, where dog sleds are more the norm than taxis, Milan’s ice bar was sculpted from 50 tonnes of crystal clear ice carried almost to the Mediterranean from the river Torne, 200 km north of the Arctic Circle.

Built in a glass refrigerator, the ice bar glimmers blue as Milan’s fashion set lumber around in the padded silver ponchos which they must put on before treading into the minus five degrees centigrade chamber.

Barmen in thick boots, fleeces and fur hats serve colourful Vodka cocktails in shot glasses made from fist-sized ice cubes and slide them down the smooth ice bar.

"A lot of people worry their lips are going to stick to the glass but I’ve never seen that happen," said Barmaid Mia Nilsson, who has come south from Sweden to teach the Milanese the joy of ice and flavoured Vodkas.

"Aperitivo" evening drinks are almost a religious ritual in Milan, where trend-setters slip into their latest designer garb to sashay through sleek bars or street-side cafes.

Anyone stepping out to the ice bar gets a good dose of fashion reality with their Vodka as the staff hand them a pair of white rubber boots.

"It’s a very dry cold but we’re limiting visits to half an hour. That’s about enough for most people," said Alessandro Rosso, the owner of the new luxury town house hotel which houses the ice bar.

"Besides, we only let 60 people in at a time so they can really enjoy the place, so we need to keep rotating," he added.

The knee-length capes are not just protection against the cold but also look after the ice, limiting scratches from people’s clothing and stopping too much body heat escaping, which would melt the pillars and bar in weeks.

As it is, rosso expects the bar, which took three months to build, to last a maximum six months before the ice wears thin.

"Probably in April we will remake the bar for the first time. It’s great because we can design it completely new every time, putting in new ideas and Italian style, maybe working with our top designers," he said.

The concept is the same as the Ice hotel, a glorified igloo which is carved from blocks of ice and packed snow every November and melts back into the river torne every may.

Because the torne is so unpolluted and runs so fast, little air gets caught in the ice, leaving it so clear people can easily lip read through the columns.

"It’s a natural cycle of life — it comes, it goes," said Yngve Bergquist, head of the Ice hotel.

"But we wanted to extend the pleasure throughout the year so we opened a bar in Stockholm and now in Milan. It’s perfect because we want to push the boundaries of ice design and this is a city of art."

The Ice hotel plans at least another 15 franchises for ice bars around the world.

"We have plenty enough ice up there," Bergquist smiled. (AGENCIES)

US vets lack insurance: Study

Many had seen combat in Vietnam or the Gulf wars and most were employed, the physicians for a national health program and public citizen said yesterday in a joint report.

"The number of uninsured veterans has increased by 235,159 since 2000, when 9.9 percent of non-elderly veterans were uninsured, a figure which rose to 11.9 percent in 2003," the groups said.

They found that more than one in three veterans under the age of 25 lacked health coverage, and one in 10 of those aged 45 to 65.

"Like other uninsured Americans, most uninsured vets are working people. And uninsured veterans are denied the care they need —turned away because they can’t pay," Dr Steffie Woolhandler of Harvard medical school, who helped found the PNHP, told a news conference.

Secretary of veterans affairs Anthony Principi said the report used veterans to advance a political agenda — taxpayer-funded universal health care.

"Americans can be proud of the health care provided to the men and women who have served this nation in uniform," principil said in a statement. "Record numbers of veterans are choosing and getting VA health care because of the quality and timeliness of that care."

The report did not dispute the quality of care and woolhandler praised the VA for its overall efficiency.

The VA also disputed the 1.7 million figure and was checking its own records. (AGENCIES)